Mozart: Die Zauberflote [The Magic Flute] (Complete opera recorded 1950)

'A Mozart treat not to be missed.' (The Penguin Guide to Compact Discs, 2004)

Mozart's last opera, The Magic Flute, had its premiere (in Vienna) in September 1791. For Karajan, who was once described by his long-time producer Michel Glotz as 'a cross between a child and a very wise old Chinese man', it was the one Mozart opera in which he always felt at home. He included it in his repertoire as early as 1934, during his first season as music director in Aachen, and in 1938 he conducted a famous production at the Berlin State Opera and also recorded the overture (his very first recording for the gramophone).

Karajan lost his job with the Berlin Opera in 1942 and, after the war, was kept away from the Vienna Opera and its fabulous roster of young Mozart singers by a wily administrator and a clutch of jealous rivals. However, in 1950, EMI's legendary producer Walter Legge, who since the end of the war had been assiduously courting the cream of Viennese musical life, offered Karajan the opportunity to record all the music from Die Zauberflöte (with the spoken dialogue omitted) with that famous Viennese ensemble of singers (see the review above) and players.